The former foreign correspondent, who is co-presenting ITV1 show Britain's Secret Treasures with Bettany Hughes, said he doesn't miss his old role.

"I'd done it for a very long time, about 15 years," he said, "so that's 15 years where your evening is not your own.

"It's not much of a job really, you just read out loud," Michael added.

"You're playing a part in the construction of the programme, but at the end of the day, what you're paid for, when everyone else slopes off to the bar, you put your jacket on, someone slaps some make-up on you, you sit in front of that autocue and you read what you'd written out loud."